writing about horrible things shouldn't make me feel happy ~

[lookingland]

but i can't help it ~ it does.

: D

navicat always has such a nice little updater announcement and today i am feeling pretty good after the thoes of death on sunday night, so i thought i would copy the format for funsies.

this is From Slaughter Mountain: take 187 (this scene: "A Horse on the Road").

2,000 / 10,000,000,000 (0.0%)

like my counter? (snark)

scene synop: immediately after the battle at Cedar Mountain, our intrepid D Company squad goes down the hill to see what there is to see before night falls.

darling: The man’s arm was hanging by shreds of skin, but he was in too much shock to realize it. When he moved, the fractured bone twirled so that the limb spun like a bloody wind chime.

mean things: see above. that and the subtitular dead horse and pretty much a whole bunch of other things like the barf in the ambulance (for which, i must add, i showed a great deal of restraint given my original impulse was to wax on about Sharp having holes in his shoes while having to stand in it).

random fun fact: an estimated one and a half million horses and mules died in service to the armies during the Civil War (that's more than two dead animals for every one dead man).

in the future, i'll really have to keep vigilant that all my darlings and mean things don't overlap all the time. of course, perhaps "mean things" is just redundant anyway, given the nature of this story.



national sporting library
Civil War horse memorial
middleberg, VA

Comments

[gwyn-hwyfar.livejournal.com]

When he moved, the fractured bone twirled so that the limb spun like a bloody wind chime.
Oh, that is absolutely beautiful and precious! heeheeheehee I love it :D

[lookingland.livejournal.com]

thank you ~ !

: D

[lanyn.livejournal.com]

AHHH! Gruesome. But cool. But the random fact makes me very sad.

[lookingland.livejournal.com]

yeah, that's about 300,000 horses and mules a year.

25,000 a month.

roughly 830 a day (compared to 329 men per day).

how on earth did they manage to kill so many???

: o p

[rabiagale.livejournal.com]

Yikes! Did they use them for food? Or was it all war casualties?

[lookingland.livejournal.com]

i kinna figure it. i'm guessing a good pile got killed in battles (if they could kill upwards of 20,000 men in a day, then i guess a lot of horses went with 'em.

otherwise, they must have died from sickness and forced marches and such. i'm guessing a few got used for food in desperate moments, but at 830 a day, that's a lot of eats!

: D

[navicat.livejournal.com]

Oh dear, now I feel guilty for taking the night off :(

*guilt*

[lookingland.livejournal.com]

oh my goodness ~ ! why should you feel guilty?

if anything, props to you for spurring the rest of us onward!

: D

[navicat.livejournal.com]

Aww, you guys are the bestest *hugs*

Better get something done tonight then, ay?

[utter-scoundrel.livejournal.com]

"From Slaughter's Mountain"

Directed by Quentin Tarantino, from a script by...

[lookingland.livejournal.com]

oh God nooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

~ hahahahaha

: D

[bachsoprano.livejournal.com]

I like navicat's updateries too...they always spur me onwards...(heh)...

As for the horses, I've got a couple of books with photographs of the battlefields in the Boer War and World War One. The loss of human life is terrible, but the horses....it chokes me up every time. There's something so incredibly noble about creatures that would stand their ground in the line of machine fire and pull cannons and lead charges, and something so horribly wrong about the humans who would demand that sacrifice of them.

I would hazard to guess the reason the equine casualities were so high was not only because of death in battle, but starvation. And becoming food sources. And, being put down because of injury. No time to let a lame horse heal when there's a war going on...

Sigh. Now, there's a cheery thought for a Thursday afternoon....

[lookingland.livejournal.com]

arghhh ~ i know! it's awful!

don't read my story. (hahahahahaha) ~ oy.

but i agree ~ i think the majority of these went to accidents and illness due to hard campaigning (moreso than battle).

poor ponies.

: o p

There's a documentary

[(Anonymous)]

called Horses of Gettysburg.

Part of the Civil War Minutes series. I haven't seen it yet--just heard it was good (but my source isn't always reliable).

I think this story should be brutal--it was, and so it has to be. To leave it out, as has often been the case, sanitizes the war and I think this is a war that has been far too sanitized and needs to have the brutal truth told about it--but hey that's how i feel about all wars (but particularly this war).

me, moo

Re: There's a documentary

[lookingland.livejournal.com]

there's a new book out about northern atrocities committed against southern civilians (because God knows i don't have nearly enough to read right now).

sometimes i think the awful things that happened in this war were so awful that no one wanted to talk about them. i can't tell you how many biographies i've crossed (north and south) where there was such a desire for all-out reconciliation or revenge (no one felt half-hearted about it in the aftermath). and you always get the creepy feeling that the people pushing for reconciliation were the ones who were so wounded they just couldn't fathom carrying all that bile around for the rest of their lives.

certainly nostalgia got the best of this war. which is why i think we're still fighting it (in our race relations, in our politics, and a hundred other places we don't really think about day-to-day).

ooo ~ you caught me chatty. hahahaha ~

i was just reading Gaskell's ~ and thinking of you, moo.

: D